


too close an echo

by Nadezhda (Emily_Nicaoidh)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Biblical Allusions, D/s, Hot Springs & Onsen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Non-Sexual Submission, Subdrop, asexual viktor, eventual viktuuri, non-sexual D/s, references to past chris/viktor, softe D/s, viktuuri
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2018-12-24 13:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12013374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emily_Nicaoidh/pseuds/Nadezhda
Summary: Viktor honestly thought that Yuuri would never find out he was asexual. In retrospect, he admits that was incredibly optimistic.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have a hard time getting inside Viktor's perspective until I think of him as asexual. He's so extra, for lack of a better word, that I wonder what he is hiding. This is an attempt to work that out, for myself more than anything else.

"I had no idea," Yuuri said. He stared at Viktor, unblinking, holding his gaze until they both lost courage, both looked away at almost the same moment. 

"I sort of figured," Viktor replied. "That was kind of the entire point."

"Did Chris know?"

"Chris is why I figured it out," Viktor said. "You know we dated, right? It...ended badly. He...well. I don't want to go into it. We both said things."

"And that's why you felt like you had to hide it from me?" Yuuri sounded hurt, and Viktor ducked his head, not wanting to meet his eyes, not wanting to see--

"That's why I knew I had to hide it," Viktor agreed. 

They fell silent. Crickets chirped in the trees bordering the onsen; water sloshed gently against the worn-down rocks piled at the edge of the pools. Viktor sunk deeper into the water, leaning his head back enough to rest it on the edge and stare up at the stars. Ostensibly they were the same ones that he had seen in St. Petersburg, but Viktor could never seem to translate the Russian names for the constellations that he knew to the roiling masses of light above Hasetsu. The constellations at home were fewer, farther apart, neatly categorizable into familiar names and figures. In Hasetsu they bled together, the lines he tried to draw between the stars twisting in his mind, dissolving and re-forming endlessly until he felt sick, lost, small. 

"ты неправ."

The words were so quiet, the barest whisper, that Viktor almost didn't hear them. Couldn't hear them, above the violence in the sky and the ever-blaring crickets and cicadas. 

"What?" He breathed, the question floating over the steaming surface of the spring water. He can't have heard correctly. The heat and the noise and the madness above him must be seeping into his mind, melting and morphing words that Yuuri had surely spoken in English into the more familiar, comforting Russian.

"ты неправ," Yuuri said, louder this time. "ты неправ, ты неправ, ты неправ. Vitya. ты неправ."

"I don't understand," Viktor whispered. "Yuuri, I don't understand."

"You're wrong. You don't have to hide it," Yuuri repeated, in English this time, and Viktor felt horribly, suddenly exposed beneath the stars and cicadas and Yuuri's serious, level gaze.

"You can't mean that," Viktor whispered. 

"моя любовь," Yuuri began, then holding a finger to Viktor's lips when he opened his mouth to protest. Viktor pressed his lips shut. The pad of Yuuri's finger burned with more heat than it could have possibly gained from the onsen. "I believe you that you can't believe me now. Just let me prove it," Yuuri asked. 

Viktor dipped his head beneath the surface of the spring and squeezed his eyes shut. It was too similar. Too close an echo to what Chris had said when Viktor, sweaty and hurting and raw inside and out, had screamed at him, the truth teating out of him, the words blistering his mouth as they left him. 

He let his held breath bubble slowly out of him, watching the wobbly bubbles fly towards the surface where they burst messily. The mineraly water stung his eyes but Viktor held them mercilessly open, watching until the last bubble of air was gone.

He closed his eyes, but with his head still submerged that just served to trap the water against the delicate membranes, and his eyes burned.

He couldn't be sure if his lungs were bothered; too focused on the irritation in his eyes and the searing pain in his heart. 

Abruptly, he stood up, opening his eyes as he rose from the water. "Alright," said a version of himself that Viktor wasn't sure he recognized. "Alright."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor has trouble sleeping and eventually gives up altogether.

They had retired for the night almost immediately after Viktor accepted Yuuri's proposal, each to their own rooms. Viktor had slid the door firmly shut, not sparing a glance down the hallway to see if Yuuri was doing the same. He didn't want to do anything that could be misinterpreted as an invitation. _Not after last time_ , Viktor swore to himself.

But the night was long and sleep eluded Viktor; around five in the morning he admitted defeat and, needing to get out of his room and not wanting to wake the rest of the inn, slipped back into his grass green onsen robe and headed for the pools again, walking with the light steps of a dancer.

The pools were empty this early; most people preferred to soak in the afternoon or the evening tihs time of year.

Sunrise was still about forty minutes away, and in the dim, pre-dawn light the clouds of steam drifting above the water were tinted lavendar and grey.

He folded his robe and left it on a boulder beside the pool, then slipped back into the water. For several minutes he sat there, soaking, eyes closed, allowing his thoughts to wander and drift.

A gentle breeze started from the east, carrying the steam from the onsen away from Viktor and making him shiver as the air around his shoulders dropped in temperature. He sunk a little bit deeper into the water.

A soft flumff sound behind him caused him to open his eyes to seek out the source of the noise, and he found Yuuri standing beside the bounder on which a pair of green robes now sat folded.

"Good morning," Yuuri said, stepping into the pool and sighing. "You weren't in your room, and I thought you might be out here."

"I couldn't sleep," Viktor admitted.

"I had some silly, romantic plan to have breakfast made for you when you woke up," Yuuri said, "but I'm glad you came out here if you couldn't sleep."

"It's peaceful," Viktor agreed. "The hot water, the way the light reflects on the fog..." He trailed off, thinking.

Yuuri hummed in agreement, and for several long moments they were both silent, watching as the drifts of fog changed subtly with the rising morning's sun.

"So is that part of your plan?" Viktor asked, curiosity getting the better of him. "Seduce me with breakfast?"

"It's part of it," Yuuri said.

"That's...not a bad plan," Viktor observed.

"Well, probably you should reserve judgement until after you've actually tried it," Yuuri laughed a little. "I'm nowhere near as good a cook as my mom."

They stayed in the onsen until the sun was mostly up and both of their stomachs had growled embarrassingly, causing the pair of skaters to finally admit they needed to eat breakfast soon if they were going to make it to the ice in time to get in a full day's practice. With both their respective Nationals competitions on the horizon in the next few weeks, there was no time for an indulgent day off.

In spite of how brazenly Viktor had presented his naked self to Yuuri when he had arrived in Hasetsu back before the season began, since their conversation last night he had begun to feel an unexplainable hesitation toward regressing to that same level of openness. Back then it had been a ploy, a trick to get the attention from Yuuri that he had craved so desperately; now that he had that attention he wasn't sure what to do with it.

It was the first time Viktor had ever felt that way, and it made him uneasy. Sure, he'd been the focus of Chris' attentions and object of his desire for longer than he cared to admit that he knew; this was different. Yuuri was different. Viktor wanted Yuuri's attention, or thought that he did. He wanted to find out if he did.

Wrapped in the inn's robes and leaning against the frame of a paper-thin wall, sipping miso from a wide spoon and poking at an onsen egg with a chopstick so that its yolk dripped into the rice surrounding it. Yuuri had placed this dish in front of Viktor with some hesitation, as if he expected any reaction other than Viktor's typical exclamation of "Vkusno!".

"Yuuri," Viktor began, stretching out the middle vowels in Yuuri's name to fill the uncertainty between them. "You're going to make me too full and tired to skate with breakfasts like this."

And then Yuuri had flushed, that violent pink blush that he was prone to blooming across his nose, a nose that Viktor was convinced he could write hymns to if given the time and inclination, and then Yuuri had settled down to sit on a cushion beside Viktor, leaning into him as Viktor leaned againt the door frame, and Viktor thought back on the morning that they had created together and saw that it was very good.


	3. Chapter 3

Viktor had been lying, of course. 

Too tired to skate, at seven in the morning? Impossible, no matter what he had done or drank or eaten the night before. In the evening, certainly. He didn't have Yuuri's legendary stamina, after all. But in the morning? He craved the ice, his muscles ached for the chance to skate, the constant battle against himself as he fought to make each quad higher, each landing cleaner than he had managed before. 

No, he would never be too tired for the ice in the morning. But after landing his fifth quad flip of the day after hours of warming up, after uncountable laps around the rink, Viktor was tired. He skated to the side of the rink and lifted the latch that held the half-door closed, steadying himself with a hand on the barrier as he replaced his skate guards and then carefully stepped over to the bench. 

"Done for the day?" Yuuri asked, skating over to his side of the rink and causing a small shower of ice flakes to erupt around his ankles when he stopped.

"I think so," Viktor said. 

Yuuri watched him carefully, considering. "I think I am too, then."

"Don't stop early on my account," Viktor said, annoyance creeping into his voice. 

"Too late for that," Yuuri said mildly, slipping on his skate guards and joining Viktor on the bench. "Do you want help with those?" He waved at Viktor's skates. 

 

"No?" Viktor said, but it came out as more of a question than anything else. "I can get my own skates off."

"I know you can, but you don't have to," Yuuri said, his voice unexpectedly soft. 

Viktor flushed, suddenly aware that they were talking about much more than just his skates. 

"Maybe not today," he said. "But someday, maybe." He wasn't sure how far the metaphor stretched, or if he was making any sense at all, but Yuuri nodded as if an important question had been answered. 

"Of course," he said. "We have all the time in the world."

 

And somehow, as they left Ice Castle and an afternoon spent wandering along the shoreline stretched into an early sunset and a sky full of cold, twinkling stars, Viktor began to believe that they did have all the time in the world. How long ago had those stars burned the atoms whose death lights he now watched? Time's grasp on their lives seemed tenuous at night, under Hasetsu's strange stars. 

"Let's go back to the onsen," Viktor said, tearing his gaze away from the cold lights.

"Cold?" Yuuri asked, and for a moment Viktor thought he meant the stars. But no, Yuuri would probably find these stars comforting and familiar, not icy cold as Viktor did. 

"A bit," he answered. 

They ambled back to the inn, the prospect of the hot springs warming them even before they arrived, and at their unhurried pace Viktor felt like he was seeing the city for the first time. Bars were opening, shops closing. One set of fluorescent lights winked out and another replaced them, transforming the streets into their nighttime selves. Different people were about, or maybe the same people in different dress, but Viktor felt more out of place than usual, walking down the main street beside Yuuri, the pair of them in track pants and running shoes, skates stowed safely in their backpacks, while mesh-shirted men in leather pants and glitter paint passed them on the sidewalk, neither party giving the other a second glance.

"Surprising amount of clubs here, for such a small town," Viktor commented, once they were away from the fluorescently-lit street and halfway over the last bridge before the streen the inn was on.

"Most of them are newer," Yuuri said. "There was a revival in tourism around here a few years ago, people started getting interested in the ninja castle and all that stuff sprung up. A lot of the old timers don't like it."

Though he avoided any overt judgement, it was clear from Yuuri's tone that he included himself in the latter group.

"You're not the nightclub type?" Viktor asked. 

"Not really," Yuuri said, resting a hand on the gate in front of the inn's yard, then pulling it open. Viktor followed him in, listening for the now-familiar creak as the old door swung shut. 

 

"I'd go if you wanted to, though," Yuuri said some hours later, as they once again leaned back against the side of the onsen and watched the stars. 

"What?" Viktor was momentarily lost, tearing his attention away from the harsh, blinking bodies back to the conversation. 

"To a nightclub," Yuuri clarified. "I'd go with you, if you wanted to."

"Oh." Viktor almost considered it. There had been one disastrous attempt to go to a club with Chris, back when things were not yet so bad. Possibly the club had been part of what had sent them over the edge. "Not really my scene."

Yuuri didn't pry, but shifted so that he was seated a little closer to Viktor. "That's fine."

Silence fell again, and Viktor found himself tilting as though on an axis, his center adrift, until his head came to rest on Yuuri's shoulder. The steam from the onsen seemed to soak into his exposed skin, suffusing him with warmth. 

Viktor let his head fall to the side and stared up at the sky, watching for anything and nothing in particular. Eventually the cold stars would be come familiar if he watched them long enough, Viktor thought. 

A flash of light, then nothing. 

"Did you see that?" Yuuri asked, and Viktor looked over at him and saw that he also had been watching the stars through glasses blurry from steam. 

"Was that a comet?" Viktor asked. 

"I think so," Yuuri said. 

"Wow."

"Yeah."

There was something more he wanted to say, some half-formed idea clamoring to be let out of his mind, but when Viktor tried to shape it into words it evaporated, slipping out of his grasp. Instead of the stars he watched Yuuri, who was propping his glases up on the top of his head and turning to look at Viktor. 

"We're not supposed to do this in the onsen," Yuuri said, flashing a wicked grin at Viktor, then taking his hand. 

Viktor felt the breath go out of him in one immediate gasp; it was the last thing he had expected after a bold statement like that. He stifled the instinct to snatch his hand away and let it rest in Yuuri's, feeling the ridges and grooves of the Yuuri's pruney fingers underneath his.

"That wasn't what I expected," Viktor admitted a bit later, when his heart rate had returned to normal and he had started to grow accustomed to the softness of Yuuri's hand under his.

"That's why I did it," Yuuri said quietly. "I won't be what you expect. I'll be better." The note of determination in his voice made something catch in Viktor's throat, something old and cold and sad.

"I--" 

"Good night, Viktor," Yuuri said, letting Viktor's hand slip out of his as he stood, grabbed his robe off a tree branch, and stepped out of the onsen. 

Viktor was left staring after him, mesmerized. He stayed in the onsen that night longer than he would later be willing to admit, thinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment and let me know what you think! Thanks for reading <3 <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, chapter 4! Things are starting to HAPPEN. we'll see... *cackles ominously*

After that first morning, Viktor made a habit of soaking in the onsen before breakfast. On good mornings it was refreshing, being in the hot water and the bracing cold air. On bad mornings after bad nights it helped clear his head, chasing the frayed edges of nightmares and memories out of his consciousness. Some mornings Yuuri joined him; some he didn't, and there seemed to be no pattern to Yuuri's presence that Viktor could detect.

"Oh, I come down too if I wake up early enough," Yuuri said when Viktor finally asked him about it somewhat snappishly, on a bad morning after weeks of looking for a pattern. "Sometimes I just sleep lighter, I don't think there's any reason for it."

"Hm." Viktor slouched, letting his shoulders sink into the water until the tip of his nose was just out of the water.

"We're getting into the pretty cold part of the winter," Yuuri said. "This is my favourite time to be in the onsen. When it's the coldest outside that it ever gets. When I was a kid I went out on the longest night of the year, stayed in the water really late."

"Why?" Viktor asked, sitting up again so that he could talk.

"I don't really know," Yuuri admitted. "It just seemed like something to do."

"I've done things for that reason before too," Viktor said, his words coming out much graver than he intended. 

"But not since coming here?" Yuuri asked, and Viktor could hear the tightness in his voice.

"No," he said. "Not since coming here."

"Good."

The hot springs always seemed to invite silence, and this morning was no different in that respect. The quiet settled around them like a familiar blanket, and the two skaters watched the sun rise in silence.

 

In spite of skating on three hours' sleep, or maybe somehow impossibly because of it, Viktor landed a quad axel for the first time in practice that afternoon. Yuuri hadn't been watching; he wasn't even on the ice. It wasn't like Yuuri didn't know that Viktor was working on it, since they spent 99% of their practice time together, but something about the quad axel felt unusually private, and Viktor didn't attempt it much when Yuuri was also on the ice. Yuuri had stepped out for a few moments to answer a phone call from Minako; as soon as he'd heard "moshi moshi" in Yuuri's voice he had abandoned the step sequence he'd been refining and started working on the jump.

Viktor knew that part of the reason he was so willing, eager even, to attempt it was that when he (inevitably) fell, he had the onsen to look forward to after practice. The tub in his apartment in St. Petersburg was nowhere near as deep as the onsen; there was something about its steam, smelling delicately of minerals, that soothed his weary muscles and bruised body better than anything else ever could. With that epitome of relaxation in his future, Viktor threw himself into the quad axel, fully expecting to crash. 

Then for the first time, clean, smooth ice underneath his skate instead of bruising coldness against his shoulder, and he swept around the rink, skating a lap to burn off the leftover momentum, and then, for no other reason other than the sheer joy of it, abrupty turned and did a quad flip. 

"Wow." Yuuri's voice was quiet, but in the still air of the skating rink the sound carried across the ice. "Was that the first time?"

Viktor skated over to the boards and reached for a tissue. "Yeah," he said.

"Wow."

"I think that's it for me today," Viktor said, stepping off the ice and slipping on his skate guards. "I don't want to overdo it. Gotta coddle these aging ligaments if I want to ever do that in competition someday."

Yuuri rolled his eyes. "I'm going to stay another few hours. See you at home?"

"See you at home."

 

Viktor walked back, taking his time wandering across the bridge that connected Yu-Topia with the main part of the city. At any hour of the day or night there were elderly fisherman with their lines off the edges, smoking and reading the newspaper. Viktor wasn't sure he actually knew anyone who read paper newpapers anymore, but there they were. By now he was confident navigating Hasetsu's streets and byways, making his way home without Yuuri there to guide him.

Viktor couldn't say when Yu-Topia Katsuki had shifted from "Yuuri's house" to "home" in his head, but by the time he noticed he was doing it Viktor found the habit so ingrained he wasn't sure he wanted to bother breaking it. 

Besides, he liked it. Liked what it said about them, that Yuuri's home and his home were the same place, that something about them was tied together in an intractible way.

 

"I'm home," Yuuri said, slipping into the hot springs beside Viktor. 

"Welcome back," Viktor answered, cracking his long-closed eyes open.

"I see you practice every day and I still don't understand how you do the things you do," Yuuri said.

"It's just practice," Viktor replied. "A lot of it, for a long time."

"It isn't, though," Yuuri argued. "There's something...almost divine. It's like I'm watching a god when you're on the ice."

"I don't feel like a god," Viktor said.

"I think that's for us mortals to decide," Yuuri said, reaching up and tracing a gentle finger along Viktor's hairline at the back of his neck.

"A balding god."

"No, never."

"Flatterer."

"Only if that will get me somewhere," Yuuri joked.

"It might," Viktor said, the words carrying a boldness he wasn't sure he felt.

 

"Come to bed with me," Yuuri said later that night, after a dinner eaten lazily in front of the television in the inn's front room, more watching the other diners watch football than watching the game itself.

"You're serious," Viktor said slowly, stopping in the middle of the hallway and turning to face Yuuri. "Tonight?"

"I'm serious," Yuuri echoed, stepping forward and tracing a fingertip down the edge of Viktor's ear. "I want to sleep with you."

"Why?" Viktor asked, the word popping out before he could reconsider.

"Because you're the msot beautiful man I've ever seen. Because I know you have bad dreams and I wonder if you wouldn't if you weren't alone. Because I like the way your hair smells and I want to smell that when I wake up. Because I wonder what you look like when you're asleep. Because today you've looked exhausted all damn day and somehow landed a quad axel anyway, and I think you deserve some good sleep. And I think I can can give that to you." Yuuri finished his declaration somewhat breathless, but no less determined. "Will you come to bed with me?"

"Yes."

Their bedtime routines were already mirror images of each other, changing clothes and brushing teeth and washing faces in the inn's only upstairs bathroom silently scheduled around each other, and Viktor went through the motions in a blur, dancing around Yuuri and his routine with practiced steps. 

Time slowed down when he stood outside Yuuri's bedroom door, holding a blanket and a pillow.

"Come in," Yuuri said, sliding the door open.

The covers were already pulled back; Viktor dropped his blanket on top of the one already on the bed, tossed his pillow next to Yuuri's, and climbed under the covers. 

"I get cold at night," he said, completely misreading Yuuri's questioning gaze. 

"It's fine." Yuuri slipped into bed beside him.

The bed was wide enough to fit them both, but not so wide they could avoid touching. Yuuri turned so that only his shoulder was touching Viktor, and Viktor leaned against him, resting his head on the edge of Yuuri's pillow.

"Yuuri," Viktor asked, drawing the vowels out long.

"Hm?" 

"If we're sleeping together you should call me Vitya," Viktor decided. 

"Vitya," Yuuri said, trying it out. "Okay. I will."

"Good."

"Vitya."

This time, Viktor blushed. "What?" the question came out gruffer than he had intended.

"Nothing. Good night," Yuuri said. 

"Good night."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you think in the comments <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after. Yuuri and Viktor have an important conversation and realize some things about themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to edit the tags for this chapter: softe d/s , non-sexual d/s. That wasn't at all where I planned for this fic to go but it just sort of happened. Then I sat on the chapter for about 2 months and realized that this did make the most sense to me plot-wise, so I kept it in and here we are.

"I didn't think this was possible," Viktor whispered the next morning, muffling his words into the side of Yuuri's shoulder. He had woken up with Yuuri half draped across him, an arm slung over his belly and their ankles tangled together. Hardly daring to move and not sure what he should do about Yuuri's halfway erect dick, which was pressed against his hip, Viktor silently debated with himself until he saw a pair of familiar amber eyes blinking awake. 

 

"Think what was possible?" Yuuri asked, slurring the English a bit, obviously only half awake. 

 

"This kind of closeness," Viktor said. "Without--well. You know. A steep cost."

 

"Oh." A conflicted look crossed Yuuri's face. "I didn't mean to give that impression."

 

"It didn't come from you," Viktor assured him. "Um...about your..." He trailed off, not sure how to word his question or if he even wanted to hear the answer to it. 

 

"Ignore it," Yuuri said firmly, understanding what Viktor was reluctant to ask. "Dicks are morons. It'll go away."

 

"Yuuri!" Viktor laughed, delighted.

 

"Yes, Vitya?" Yuuri rolled over onto his stomach, blinking up at Viktor with pretended innocence. 

 

"You're a danger to society," Viktor grumbled. "Looking so innocent like that. When you probably have intentions."

 

"I have _so_ many intentions," Yuuri agreed, twisting his fingers gently into Viktor's hair. "I think you'll like all of them, though."

 

"You aren't going to tell me what they are?" Viktor asked, and for a moment the old, flirty facade that he had kept up for so many years flashed across his face.

 

"I will if you want me to," Yuuri said. "But I'd prefer not to just yet." 

 

"Hm." Viktor wriggled a little closer to Yuuri, who leaned into his shoulder. "Are...are you smelling me?"

 

"I told you yesteryday I like the way you smell and I want to smell that in the morning," Yuuri protested. 

 

"I sort of thought that was just a pickup line," Viktor admitted. 

 

"No pickup lines here," Yuuri said solemnly. "Just trying to make the most of our rest day."

 

Viktor sighed, letting his eyes drift closed, and leaned closer to Yuuri. Yuuri's head rested on his shoulder and Viktor could smell the warm, cedar-y scent of Yuuri's shampoo. 

 

"This was the best way to wake up," Viktor said. 

 

"Good. No bad dreams?" Yuuri asked.

 

"None. You must have scared them off." Viktor kept his tone light, but he meant it. The things that haunted him seemed less real, part of a semi-ficticious hazy past when Yuuri, warm and smiling and serious all at once was right in front of him. Or beside him, as it were. 

 

"It's...relaxing, knowing that you have plans but not knowing anything about them," Viktor said eventually, thinking back to Yuuri's earlier words. 

 

"What? Really? You don't think it's weird?" Yuuri asked.

 

"I had an ex who was really into this...um, scene, I guess," Viktor said. "He wanted to me to order him around, um...in bed. And other times. I couldn't do it. It was so overwhelming trying to figure out how to keep control of him and convincingly fake being into the sex that..yeah. That didn't last long." 

 

"There is so much wrong with that I don't even know where to start," Yuuri said.

 

"I know that now," Viktor agreed. "I didn't then. Sometimes you make me think of him- not that you're being the same way, but that I think you could have been what he needed. In a way I couldn't. Can't."

 

"Oh," Yuuri realized. "You're telling me you're a sub, and asking if I'm a dom, aren't you?"

 

Viktor hummed something noncommittal.

 

"Well, yeah, I am. I'm not into any of the heavier stuff though," Yuuri said. "And it doesn't have to be about sex for me, either. I just like the power exchange. Having that control, using it to take care of the other person."

 

"I'm obviously not into the sex parts," Viktor agreed. "But....I like the way it feels. Knowing someone else has everything under control, that I don't have to worry about anything."

 

"Wow." Yuuri thought for a moment. "We should have a safeword. Do you have a safeword?"

 

"No," Viktor said. 

 

"No way, Vitya," Yuuri said firmly. "If we're going to do what I think you're suggesting, you have to have a safeword. We can't do this otherwise. I want us both to have a way out if I get something wrong."

 

"No, I mean I don't have a safeword," Viktor said. "But I know what they are."

 

"Of fucking course not," Yuuri groused. "Sorry. Not mad at you, love. Well, we should think of one for you now. If you want to do this thing we're sort of dancing around doing."

 

"Yes," Viktor breathed. "Yuuri, yes, I want to."

 

"I do too. Pick a safeword then, that's order nummber one," Yuuri said. 

 

"Mint," Viktor decided. "I don't like the flavour, so I won't accidentally say it for some other reason."

 

"Mint," Yuuri said. "You did amazing, sweetie. Thank you."

 

Viktor squirmed.

 

"Sorry, too much too soon?" 

 

"No, I...I like that."

 

"I'm glad."

 

 

Impossibly, Viktor found himself drifting off to sleep, buoyed by the pleasant sound of Yuuri praising him repeating in his mind. When he woke a few hours later, the other side of the bed was cold and the blanket had slipped half off of him and onto the floor.

 

"Where's Yuuri?" Viktor asked, stumbling down the stairs after hastily pulling on a pair of sweatpants and the first jacket he found, which happened to be one of Yuuri's. The sleeves were too short, but Viktor liked wearing the jacket belonging to his--what? Boyfriend? He realized he wasn't sure what to call this relationship they had stumbled into.

 

"He went to pick up a sake delivery that was sent to Minako-sempai's place instead by mistake," Hiroko called to him from the dining room. 

 

"Thanks, Hiroko-san!" Viktor said. "Is there any breakfast left?"

 

"I saved some for you, Vicchan," she replied, disappearing into the kitchen briefly and returning with a large bowl of miso, a pile of rice, and a pot of green tea. She set it all down on one of the low tables, then surprised Viktor by sitting down on a cushion across the table from him. 

 

"いただきます," Viktor said, then started in on his breakfast as Hiroko poursed them both tea.

 

"I don't think he'll be back till late, though," she warned, pushing a teacup across the table to Viktor and taking a sip of her own.

 

"Oh? Why's that?" Viktor asked, somehow getting the words out despite inhaling the soup.

 

"Oh, you know Minako," Hiroko replied. "She'll keep him there all day, probably drag him to the ballet studio to help her with the new batch of students who appeared after your Onsen on Ice show."

 

"Oh." Viktor finished his breakfast quickly, then started to collect dishes. 

 

"No, leave it, Vicchan," Hiroko said. "We can clear up later. I wanted to talk to you about something."

 

"What's that?" Viktor asked, feeling his heart sink. This was it. She was going to say that he was no good for her son and tell him to get out of Hasetsu so that Yuuri could focus on training without a messed up, older skater around to distract him.

 

"Everyone's been saying how much happier and more focused on training Yuuri has been since you've been here," Hiroko said. "But even though I don't know you well, I can say at least that you look a lot more relaxed and happy than you did when you first got here. I think you are Yuuri are good for each other," she finished. 

 

"Hiroko-san," Viktor said, unable to stop his eyes filling with tears. "I...thank you. I'll do my best," he aded.

 

"I know you will, Vicchan," she replied. "Now, how about those dishes?"

 

After helping carry a staggering pile of dishes to the kitchen, Viktor decided it was impossible to leave her to deal with such a huge mess alone and offered to help wash. With a few detours into flicking soap bubbles at each other, laughing as damp, soapy hair got in their eyes, Hiroko and Viktor managed to clean up everything before the lunch rush started. By that time his feet were starting to itch, and he grabbed his skates and the bike that he usually borrowed and headed to the rink to practice.

 

 

Viktor stayed late at the rink. Skating extra laps of suicides couldn't hurt anything, and he hoped that the later he stayed, the more likely it would be that Yuuri would already be home when he arrived. Eventually, though, Yuuko fliched the lights on and off twice, and Viktor reluctantly skated up to the boards and stepped off the ice.

 

He didn't bother to go in the locker room; the rink had been closed to the public all day and he had just left his things on a random bench. He wiped off his skates and stowed them in his bag, then waved and Yuuko and headed out to where his borrowed bike was chained up just outside the entrance.

 

As he crossed the bridge from the main part of town, where Ice Castle Hasetsu was, to the slightly more remote Yu-Topia, the fisherman Nakamura called hello to Viktor. To Yuuri's endless amusement, Viktor had befriended all the retirees who liked to fish off of that bridge, saying that it was good language practice to talk to them and besides, they told interesting stories. 

 

"You do know you're going to end up sounding like a hick," Yuuri had told him in standard Japanese. "You're basically learning a redneck dialect."

 

"よ か よ か!" Viktor had winked. 

 

After that Yuuri had let the language issue drop. Viktor had hoped that Yuuri had caught the hint that he valued learning to speak to the people in Hasetsu specifically, not some abstract, idealized speaker of standard Japanese. He wanted to be able to talk to the people he was spending time around. The people he found himself hoping to be spending a lot of time around, maybe for years to come.

 

But Yuuri still wasn't home when Viktor arrived. He ate dinner with Toshiya, then helped with the dishes again, then flopped down on a cushion in the dining room with him to watch Sagan Tosu's football match.

 

Viktor didn't care in the slightest about football, and he had no idea which player was supposed to be Tosu, or which team he was on, but trying to make out what the commentators were saying was good language practice, so he followed the action attentively.

 

Eventually, the game ended, and Toshiya switched off the tv and stood up, stretching and saying something that Viktor half understood about getting some - plums? Pickles, maybe? ready for breakfast the next day, and left for the kitchen. 

 

Viktor was considering heading out to the hot springs when he heard the front door slide open, and a soft "ただいま" in Yuuri's voice.

 

"おかえり," Viktor replied, scrambling to his feet and hurrying to the entryway.

 

"What brought this on?" Yuuri asked, when Viktor wrapped himself around Yuuri, octopus-like, the instant Yuuri stepped through the door. "At least let me get my shoes off."

 

"Missed you," Viktor muttered into Yuuri's hair. "I woke up and you were gone."

 

"Sorry about that," Yuuri answered. "My mom wanted me to pick that sake up, and then Minako wanted help with her students, and then I ended up staying for dinner...it was hard to find a time to get away."

 

"Oh." Viktor let his arms drop and took a step back from Yuuri.

 

Yuuri bent to remove his shoes, but kept his eyes on Viktor. 

 

"I'm going to make a guess," Yuuri said carefully. "Please tell me if I'm wrong, but-- Vitya. Go wait for me in the onsen. I'll be there in a few minutes."

 

Viktor grinned. "Yuuri, _yes_ ," he breathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So language caveat: all of my extremely limited Japanese was learned from watching anime with subtitles on, and my spellings in hiragana come from google translate. I used "よ か " to phonetically (to my best guess) spell the word for good in the Kyushu dialect. I read some stuff online about different accents/dialects within Japanese and fell into a total internet rabbit hole of fascinating stuff! I'm a speaker of what's sometimes called "southern appalachian" or "old southern appalachian" aka super redneck american english but I've lived all over the place and prefer to speak standard American English at work. Plus, appalachian accents are sorta stigmatized and I feel like people don't get to hear that from me unless they've earned my trust and I know they're not going to turn around and make fun of me for it.
> 
> guys I'm just really fascinated by regional accents ok, thank you for indulging me and please share every thought you have ever had about regional accents/dialects of any language in the comments thank you


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've updated the tags - in this chapter there is a description of subdrop, and Viktor remembers some bad things that happened between him and Chris. If you want to skip to the end note, I'll put a more detailed content warning there for anyone who wants to read to decide if they want to skip this chapter or not.

Viktor took his time getting out to the onsen, trying to counterbalance the breakneck speed of his thoughts with slow and measured actions. What was Yuuri planning? He knew with crystal clarity that he needed it desperately. All of the other times that Viktor had stripped off his clothes to go in the onsen he hadn't thought twice about it, but this time was different. His skin prickled as he removed his shirt, then pants, and finallly his underwear, folding everything more carefully than he normally would and stowing it all in one of the shelves in the changing room.

 

He showered with care, scrubbing with more thoroughness than usual. Washing took on a strange, new significance. Viktor wanted to be ready for this, whatever it was going to be, and knowing that his appearance was exactly how he wanted helped him feel like he had some control over at least a tiny bit of what was about to happen.

 

But that was the point, wasn't it? The loss of control. Giving it up to someone else, someone who had sworn to take care of him.

 

Viktor paused, realizing he had been scrubbing at the back of his left knee for longer than was probably a good idea because the skin had become irritated and raw. He dropped the sponge, stepped out of the shower, and toweled off.

 

The onsen was empty; Viktor wondered if Yuuri hadn't said something to his parents or the few regulars that were usually soaking this time of night. Unsure which pool to pick and uneasy with that uncertainly, Viktor wandered between the three pools, eventually settling on the one farthest from the changing rooms, the one partially hidden from view of anyone soaking in the other pools by a stand of thin pines.

 

He slipped into the water to wait, and memories began to stir and drift up with the steam.

 

Chris had liked to make him wait. He had enjoyed how uncomfortable Viktor was with uncertaintly. Once Chris has figured out that he could push Viktor to his breaking point by doing nothing at all and simply making him wait, things had changed between then. There had alwasy been something a little...off about the way things were between them, but something about the power of being able to reduce Viktor to a shaking, sobbing mess through waiting alone had begun shifting their relationship into its darker days.

 

Viktor hated waiting, but for Yuuri he would try, he told himself sternly. Yuuri was not Chris. Yuuri said things like "dicks are morons" and "please tell me if I'm wrong" that made Viktor shiver in what he was surprised to find was a pleasant way.

 

Viktor hated waiting, but for Yuuri he was trying. A light breeze had picked up, wafting the steam away from the pools, and Viktor sunk a little deeper into the water to keep his shoulders warm.

 

Yuuri wouldn't make him wait much longer, surely, Viktor thought. It had already been so long. He hadn't expected Yuuri to be gone in the morning, hadn't expected him to stay out so late, and hadn't expected him to take so long to get out to the onsen.

 

Unless this was part of it. Unless he was meant to wait. Could Yuuri know what waiting did to Viktor? He knew that there had been something between Viktor and Chris. Could he have messaged Chris on Instagram, asked something like _how did you control Vitya_ and learned everything Viktor didn't want him to know?

 

Waiting had to be part of it, Viktor decided. He had no idea how long it had been, but the pads of his fingers and toes had pruned, and when he raised a hand out of the water it shook.

 

Viktor let his hand drop back into the water. He sat ramrod straight, knowing that if he relaxed an iota he would start shaking.

 

This was nothing like he expected from Yuuri, Viktor realized. He had thought it would be different. At that he felt the will to fight draining from him, and Viktor closed his eyes and gave in.

 

 

"Vitya?"

 

"Yu-yuuri," Viktor answered, choking a little on the word.

 

"Oh my god, are you okay? No, you're not, I can tell. Wait just a--"

 

And there it was again, that terrible word.

 

Wait.

 

Viktor drew a ragged breath. "I can't--"

 

And then Yuuri was beside him in the onsen, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close against Yuuri's side.

 

"Waiting is a hard limit for you, it seems," Yuuri said, squeezing Viktor's shoulder.

 

Viktor nodded. "I can't--I can't handle not knowing what's going to happen, or how long until it happens. Chris used to--" he breaks off, and Yuuri made a disgusted noise.

 

"Used to do what I just did?" Yuuri asked, self-reproach heavy in his voice.

 

"Not quite," Viktor said.

 

Yuuri didn't ask, and somehow that made it easier to continue.

 

"At first he would make me wait a long time. Hours. But I guess at some point he realized that it was taking less and less time for me to get--" Viktor paused, not sure how to phrase it. "Like this, but worse. Shaky. I couldn't talk. I couldn't move. Just...fear, nothing else. Couldn't think of anything. It would happen faster and faster each time. So he stopped making me wait as long, because he didn't need to."

 

Yuuri's other hand was clenched into a fist, and he let out a slow, careful breath.

 

"It sounds like you're describing subdrop," Yuuri said eventually. "It's not...it's not something we're supposed to do to you on purpose."

 

The breeze stilled, and the fog over the water thickened.

 

"I should have asked you what your limits are," Yuuri said. "I knew that you didn't have a safeword and I didn't ask you about limits. And I left you in a situation where you couldn't safeword if you wanted to."

 

"It's f--" Viktor began, but Yuuri shook his head.

 

"It's the opposite of fine. The stupid thing is that it isn't what I planned to do anyway, but Mom wanted help with the dishes and I didn't think it would take so long."

 

At this, Viktor smiled.

 

"Help with the dishes and a talk?" He asked, and something in Yuuri's expression relaxed too.

 

"Yeah," Yuuri said.

 

"It's f--" Viktor began again, but Yuuri pressed a finger to his lips.

 

"It doesn't have to fine," Yuuri insisted. "It won't happen again, and it's okay if you're not fine. It's okay if you want to stop this."

 

"I don't want that," Viktor said.

 

"I don't either," Yuuri admitted.

 

"You really didn't do it on purpose?" Viktor asked, shifting so that he could sit face to face with Yuuri.

 

"I really didn't," Yuuri said, and his face was serious but his voice was gentle.

 

"I don't want to stop this," Viktor said. "But..."

 

"This won't happen again. There won't be any more waiting," Yuuri said firmly. "And we need to talk about limits. I don't want to accidentally hurt you again."

 

"It's hard to talk about," Viktor said with a slight sigh.

 

Yuuri's frown deepened. "It'd not ideal," he said. "But I won't push. We should probably just go to bed. It's late and we were planning to skate tomorrow."

 

"So we aren't going to..." Viktor trailed off.

 

Yuuri studied him. "You don't -look like you're in subdrop still to me, but how do you feel? I don't want to make it worse."

 

"I want something good to overwrite that feeling," Viktor insisted. "Please."

 

"Oh, fuck, this is probably so unhealthy," Yuuri said, but he nodded and straightened. "Vitya. Turn around and put your arms on the side of the pool. You can rest our head there."

 

Viktor obeyed.

 

"What are you doing?"

 

"I'm taking care of you. You're still offering to submit to me, yes?"

 

"Yes," Viktor breathed.

 

"Then it's my job to take care of you how I see fit," Yuuri said. "I'm going to give you what I think you need," and Viktor shivered.

 

"Yuuri, yes."

 

"Good."

 

For a second Viktor felt nothing, and horrible fear of being left in uncertaintly crept back, but before it could take form in his thoughts Yuuri's hands were on his back, kneading into his tense muscles.

 

"What?" Viktor craned his neck to try to look at Yuuri.

 

"I'm giving you what I think you need," Yuuri reminded him. "You're the one who has chosen to submit. This is about you, Vitya."

 

"I don't--"

 

Yuuri's hands stilled.

 

"No, no! That's not what I meant! Please, keep going," Viktor corrected hastily.

 

Yuuri slowly resumed the massage.

 

Viktor felt the tension start to leave him, bleeding out under Yuuri's gentle hands into the onsen water, the awfulness of the day's waiting taken out of him and purified.

 

"You're doing so well," Yuuri murmured.

 

Viktor attempted to say something along the lines of "so are you," but it mostly came out as a quiet, contented moan.

 

"Good," Yuuri said with satisfaction. "I think we'll stop here. Come out of the water with me? I'd get a towel for you, but I don't want to leave you alone long enough to do it."

 

"Aah." Viktor tried to rouse his brain from wherever it had floated off to. "Yes. We'll go together."

 

"Good." Yuuri stepped out of the pool and turned around, extending a hand to help Viktor out.

 

They didn't talk much on the way back to the dressing room, and once dry and wrapped in warm onsen robes, the pair made their way quietly back to their room.

 

 

 

 

"I'm not sure that was the right thing to do," Yuuri admitted later, when they were snuggled together under the blankets, legs tangled between legs and Yuuri's head tucked against Viktor's chest.

 

"It was amazing," Viktor said soberly. "It made me feel all floaty and good."

 

"Subspace," Yuuri said. "You were probably in subspace. That's what it should feel like most of the time, if I'm doing it right."

 

"I've never felt anything like that before," Viktor admitted.

 

Yuuri sighed. "Listen. The way you felt before that? That's subdrop. It's dangerous when it happens accidentally, but someone doing that to another person intentionally? That's just cruel," he said.

 

"I'm starting to get that," Viktor said. "I thought it was normal."

 

Yuuri wriggled so that he could lean his forehead against Viktor's and match his gaze, sleepy eyes to sleepy eyes.

 

"Hey. I won't let anyone make you feel that way again."

 

"Okay," Viktor answered, his throat tight, but he found that somehow, he believed Yuuri.

 

After awhile, Viktor thought he heard a whispered question, something close to "why did you want to do this, if you thought it would be like that all the time?" but he was too far gone into the realm of dreams to answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Yuuri doesn't know that waiting is a hard limit for Viktor, and unintentionally triggers a mild subdrop. Viktor remembers how Chris used to cause that on purpose and is shook up. He asks Yuuri to give him something better to think about instead, so against his better judgement Yuuri initiates a brief scene in which he gives a few orders and gives Viktor a back massage.

**Author's Note:**

> Past Chris/Viktor was...not the healthiest relationship ever. Let's leave it at that. I actually don't dislike Chris; I think he's a great character. In other fics I write him as Viktor's bff, his Phichit if you will. But this is the interpretation of Chris that fits with the universe I'm exploring here.
> 
> Nearly all of the Russian I know was learned from Yuri on Ice or from reading YOI fics, and has only been checked with google translate. If you find my mistakes jarring, I apologize.


End file.
